The State-of-play report on digital public administration and interoperability 2023
, of the European Commission, shows that European countries have adopted a wide range of initiatives to ease their path to a more digitised public sector, confirming a trend that has already been observed for some years, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. The report also shows that public administrations continue to pursue a "shift of mindset" when it comes to the use of digital tools and the conception of digital public services, putting the user-centrity, usability and interoperability at the center.
Spain, as reflected in the Monitoring of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF), leads the average results in the three fields analyzed: KPIs, EIF Recommendations and EIF Pillars. The EIF Monitoring Mechanism is organized into three pillars (Principles, Levels and Conceptual Model of Interoperability) that group 47 recommendations and 68 KPIs. In most of these indicators, Spain is above the European average. Thus, in 43 of the 47 recommendations Spain obtains the highest score, placing itself in the group of countries with high performance.
This year's report highlights within the section Data exchange between administrations the case of Spain, whose base-registries developed at local, regional and national level are interconnected through the Data Intermediation Platform: " In constant expansion, the platform allows any administration to consult 130 certificates offered by more than 45 data providers. The software libraries developed by the platform can be used as part of the integration software to facilitate the connection of base registries to the platform."
In the section on 'Elaboration of policies prepared for digital', the report highlights among the best practices the countries that have decided to measure the digital impact of legislations before their adoption; in the case of Spain it points out that "in accordance with the Electronic Administration Code, Spain issues regulatory impact reports for every legislation draft, which assess the level of digitalisation of a given proposal considering administrative simplification with digital proceedings, among other criteria."
In the section on Artificial Intelligence, the report cites in the case of Spain Royal Decree-Law 9/2021 on algorithms, artificial intelligence and employees’ rights, which introduced the right of workers councils to be informed by the company about the parameters, rules and instructions on which algorithms and AI systems base their decision-making.
Likewise, the report cites in the section on Cross-border interoperability, the case of Spain and Portugal, which have privileged data exchange services for their citizens. Regarding data spaces, the report gives as an example the Spanish case in the creation of local or regional data spaces, highlighting among the best practices that of Valencia, which has presented an initiative to manage public space and urban mobility for specific groups.
The 2023 edition of the State-of-Play report on digital public administration and interoperability deep dives into three key policy areas which are at the heart of the current policy landscape:
- Interoperability and interoperable digital public services,
- Innovative use of technologies by the public sector,
- Data sharing in Europe.
To do so, it showcases digital initiatives around these topics implemented by 31 European countries, as well as undertaken at EU level. Building on a comprehensive overview and analysis, the report identifies frameworks of reference, noteworthy best practices, and potential areas of improvement for European countries.
